A Perth bricklayer created multiple fake personas online in a bid to dupe a 14-year-old girl into carrying out sex acts for him.
Donald Griffin, 58, initially claimed to be a 17-year-old boy called Lee and then he presented himself to be the boy’s mother Susan.
Griffin spun a web of lies, including that the mother worked in Police Scotland’s child abuse investigation unit, to hook the girl into believing him.
But it was ultimately Griffin who was duped, as the 14-year-old girl was actually a front for an adult member of a paedophile hunter group.
His partner called police when eight members of the vigilante organisation turned up at their home to confront “Lee Griffin” as she thought it was mistaken identity.
However, when police started to look into the matter it emerged that it was Griffin who had been using his own phone to contact the girl.
He told officers: “I don’t know what to say.”
On Thursday at Perth Sheriff Court, Griffin, of Kinloch Terrace, Perth, admitted sending sexual communication to a girl he believed to be between 13 and 16 for his sexual gratification between January 3 and 16 2019.
Sentence was deferred until March for the preparation of reports and Griffin was placed on the sex offenders register.
